Memo warned of files chaos

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A leaked memo has revealed that senior police warned that
Victoria's Office of Police Integrity was in chaos months before it
mistakenly released hundreds of confidential police files.

The memo, written in December by Detective Acting Inspector Jim
Conomy of the Victoria Police ethical standards department, said
the OPI, which had opened five weeks earlier, had no procedures to
protect documents, no filing system for reports containing
confidential information and no "totally secure stand-alone
computer systems".

"I feel if the above deficiencies are not addressed then the
public and other stakeholders will have little or no confidence in
this new organisation," he wrote.

Stepping up the pressure on the State Government over the files
debacle, the Opposition released the memo to Parliament yesterday,
saying that had the Government and OPI acted earlier, the mistaken
release in June of more than 500 pages of police files on more than
400 people may never have happened.

But Premier Steve Bracks responded that the memo had been
written while the OPI and its director, State Ombudsman George
Brouwer, were still recruiting staff, gathering resources and
developing skills.

Mr Bracks told Parliament he retained full confidence in the
OPI, despite the contents of the memo and the release of the files.
"Nothing will divert the office or the director from the task they
have, and that is to weed out police corruption," he said.

The OPI said last night all but one of the 19 "deficiencies"
listed in the memo had been dealt with. The only matter yet to be
resolved was the lack of evening shifts or after-hours rostering
for staff.

OPI spokesman Paul Conroy said: "Mr Conomy's comments were made
within a month of the establishment of the OPI and since then these
and many other issues have been addressed and the OPI has worked
hard to establish itself as an effective anti-corruption
agency."

Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, in her first public
comments on the affair, also threw her support behind the OPI and
Mr Brouwer.

"They were put into place with powers and authorities and
capacity to work with us on preventing corruption in Victoria
Police (and) that's exactly what they're doing," she said. "George
Brouwer is a fine man (and) his team is coming together, working on
very tough issues."

Mr Brouwer on Monday called in Privacy Commissioner Paul
Chadwick to investigate how the hundreds of pages of files came to
be sent from the OPI to a woman in country Victoria who had
complained that she feared her and her husband's files had been
illegally accessed.

The OPI investigated the woman's complaint in late December
 about two weeks after Detective Conomy wrote his memo 
and in June sent the folders of files to the woman in what Mr
Brouwer has described as a regrettable "clerical error in the mail
dispatch area".

Detective Conomy wrote the memo on December 17 to his commanding
officer after he and two others from the ethical standards
department's corruption investigation division spent four weeks in
the OPI training staff in investigation procedures.

He listed deficiencies that included no mission statement, poor
middle management, no official note-recording systems, no exhibits
recording systems, no tape or video recording systems, no secure
reception area, no monthly inspection process, "no adequate
internal training in conducting criminal investigations" and "no
best-practice manager systems". "I am available for consultation
and expansion concerning the above comments," he wrote. "I feel
that the contents of this report should be brought to the attention
of the Victorian Government Police Minister."

Toby Hemming, spokesman for Police Minister Tim Holding, said
last night that neither Mr Holding nor his predecessor as police
minister, Andre Haermeyer, had received the memo.

Detective Conomy, who remains an officer with the ethical
standards department, said yesterday he was angry that his memo had
been made public. "I can't comment on that at all, but if that's
been released, I'm disgusted. That should not have been released
publicly," he said.

Opposition Leader Robert Doyle said the memo showed that the OPI
had been "incompetent and sloppy". It contained warning signs that
a "debacle" such as the subsequent release of confidential files
"was only a matter of time".

"I have got no doubt that the flaws pointed out in this report
directly led to the huge mistake in releasing the files," he said.
He repeated his call for the OPI to be replaced by an independent
commission against crime and corruption.

THE STORY SO FAR

November 16, 2004: Office of Police Integrity
established.

December 14, 2004: OPI senior investigative
officer (complaints and
review) Sue Schwarz tells Ms X that it will investigate her
complaints
that her files had been inappropriately accessed by a
policewoman.

December 31, 2004: OPI writes to Ms X saying
investigators had been
unable to locate material to prove her files had been accessed
inappropriately.

May 3, 2005: Ms X writes to Ombudsman George
Brouwer, also the
director of police integrity, with concerns that her complaint had
not been
adequately addressed.